ABSTRACT: This
lecture shall examine the history of Pan-Africanism from a Diasporic
perspective, for the most part, framed by more generalized African
American attitudes towards Africa from the late-19th century onward.
In its broadest sense, the term Pan-Africanism invokes the solidarity
of all peoples of African descent wherever they may reside; in its
narrowest interpretation such solidarity has aimed for the unification
of the African continent alone. Confounding any easy categorizations
on our part is the fact that Pan-Africanist sentiment has often been
indistinguishable from nationalist outpourings in Africa as well as
the Diaspora. The phenomenon known as Ethiopianism further muddies
the conceptual boundaries. From the turn of the 19th century onward,
African-American feelings towards contemporary Africa slowly began
to warm as ignorance of the continent gave way to more enlightened
reflection. Although Garveyism did much to change Black American and
West Indian attitudes towards Africa in the post-World War I era,
the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 helped crystallize black
popular support for an esteemed African country in unprecedented ways.
Following World War II, the confluence of the Civil Rights Movement
and African decolonization fueled Pan-Africanist sentiment on both
sides of the Atlantic as Africans and African Americans alike moved
towards formal freedom.